At least 63 journalists were killed on duty last year around the world, according to the Paris-based Reporters Sans Frontières organisation yesterday - the highest number for 10 years.
Another estimate by the New York -based Committee for the Protection of Journalists puts the figure at 47, while the International Federation of Journalists has a much higher tally of over 100 reporters and media staff killed last year.
The discrepancies arise from different definitions of who should be counted as a journalist; but the pattern of an increasingly dangerous occupation and high impunity among those responsible for their deaths is depressingly common.
Iraq was once more the most dangerous place to be a journalist. Since the US invasion in March 2003 more media personnel have been killed there than during the whole period of the Vietnam war. At least 24 died violently in Iraq last year - nearly all of them Iraqi - at the hands of bombers, insurgents and the US army. While several high-profile international journalists were kidnapped, among them the Irish reporter Rory Carroll, all but one (Steven Vincent, a US freelance) escaped death.
The toll reflects the perilous conditions and severe restrictions on free media movement and access there, which in turn reminds us of the far higher casualty rate among Iraqi civilians - as was evidenced in yesterday's bombings. International news organisations rely extensively on Iraqi staff and it is remarkable that they manage to provide the limited coverage that is available in these circumstances.
The Philippines was the second most dangerous place for journalists, arising from insurgencies, deep-seated corruption and opposition among vested interests to investigative reporting. There were several high-profile murders of Lebanese editors arising from the conflict with Syria. Tunisia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Russia, Sierra Leone and Somalia added to this list of deaths. Censorship and state control of media were most marked in China and Nepal.
This catalogue of fatalities and media restrictions matters in a world made ever smaller by modern globalised communications and much greater economic and human interdependence. Accurate, reliable information and reportage, and making the powerful more accountable through the media, are more universally recognised. But, as these figures for deaths show, the limited acceptance of that principle should make the safety of journalists a general concern.